Report on the activities and research initiatives of the North American Section for the Literary Arts and Humanities

Dr. phil. Bruce Donehower; representative of the North American Section at the Goetheanum
February 2026

The North American Section for the Literary Arts & Humanities provides information about most of its activities and research work on a website that went online in October 2020. In this report, I have included links to the section's website, where the points mentioned in this summary are discussed in detail.

As is customary nowadays, our section website is immediately translated into German, French, or Spanish; the translation widget can be found in the upper right corner of the home page.

To access the website's home page, please click here. For a general overview of the section's work and research topics, please click here. For a general overview of news from the section, please click here. For a history of the North American Section since its founding around 2000, please click here. For a general history of the section worldwide, please click here. For a general overview of the research topics and concerns of the North American Section, please click here.

Activities of the North American Section in 2025

A constant challenge for the Section's work in North America is communication between friends and members across this vast continent. Although the Section's website serves as a newsletter and meeting place for the Section's activities, it can only report on the activities of those friends and members who take the time to share news and details about their work. There are friends and members who are active and working locally in their communities but do not systematically share the details of their work. To remedy this situation, the section leadership, which meets monthly, has begun to sponsor personal conferences, and we are in discussions to invite Christiane Haid in 2027 or 2028. This visit will focus on the east coast of the continent, from the Mid-Atlantic states of the US to Canada. In addition, local regional meetings of friends and members of the Section are foreseen for 2026.

Conferences

Perhaps the most significant event for the North American Section in 2025 was the North American Section Conference, which took place in San Francisco in May. (Program: here. Keynote speeches: here.) This conference complemented and concluded last year's conference in San Francisco. The 2025 Conference had the name "Return to the Mountain."

Probably the second most important event for the work of our Section in North America in 2025 took place at Harvard University. Three North American Section members and a former Section leader from the Goetheanum gave independent presentations at the Harvard Divinity School's "100 Years of Rudolf Steiner" conference (click here). Bruce Donehower, Daniel Polikoff, and Jeff Hipolito each gave presentations and participated in the four-day conference. Martina Maria Sam gave a keynote address.

Overview of other activities

The following list of key points provides an overview of other activities and ongoing work of the North American Section.

• Ongoing coordination with the Section leadership in Dornach and participation in conferences and meetings in Dornach.
• Ongoing support and contributions to the Section publication STIL.
• Ongoing regular Zoom meetings with friends and members of the Section to discuss specific research topics.
• Ongoing regular "New Moon Salons," where friends and members of the Section meet for evenings of music, conversation, and poetry.
• Ongoing regular poetry evenings where poets recite their own works and friends and members of the Section present poems by their favorite poets.
• Regular meetings of the fairy tale group led by section member Marion Donehower, who is also a member of the Section for the Fine Arts.
• Regular representation and participation in the Zoom meetings and face-to-face meetings of the North American Collegium. This is a group of representatives from all North American sections of the School of Spiritual Science, including the general secretaries of the Anthroposophical Societies of Canada and the USA and a priest from the Christian Community. This group meets twice a year in person and on average every two months via Zoom.
• Ongoing presentations of the section's research findings at events sponsored by the American Anthroposophical Society and local branches of the Society. These events take place via Zoom and in person. (Examples: here and here.)
• Ongoing contributions to the publication Being Human. Being Human is the publication of the American Anthroposophical Society.
• Publications related to the research of the North American Section on the poet Novalis and his early Romantic contemporaries, with a special focus on Rudolf Steiner's lecture on "Novalis."
• Coordination with members of the Section for the Performing and Musical Arts and the Section for the Visual Arts to present works that have emerged from the meetings and research of the North American Section.
• Coordination with the North American Youth Section to promote the literary magazine Futuring Now and to support the Youth Section's literary initiatives.

Other initiatives by friends and members of the Section

• Section member Dr. Jeffrey Hipolito is active in various international conferences, such as the Barfield Conference in Poland in 2025.
• Section friend Paul Gierlach leads a weekly discussion group on Dante's Divine Comedy at the Christian Community in Fair Oaks. Paul will discuss his work at a Section meeting this spring.
• Section member Mark McAlister will read his poems at "Where Bullets Defeat Words," a literary event in response to the events in Iran.
• Section member Rachael Staudt regularly hosts poetry events at her art gallery in Sausalito. She also works as a lecturer at Robinson Jeffers Tor House, which the section visited as part of its conference activities in 2024.
• Section member Dr. Daniel Polikoff will give a series of lectures on the poet Rilke for the Kosmos Institute in the spring of 2026. Polikoff also read one of his poems at the 2025 Rilke Conference in Prague.
• Section member Dr. Robert McDermott is collaborating with Dr. Bruce Donehower on a series of lectures on Buddhism and anthroposophy, as well as a book for SteinerBooks.
• Section member Robert McKay has initiated a series of lectures on anthroposophical approaches to meditation.
• Section member George Reitnour continues to sponsor a monthly discussion group focusing on poets and poems influenced by Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy.
• Dr. Bruce Donehower is working with an international interdisciplinary group of artists and scholars on a proposal for the Harvard Divinity School's "Belonging" conference in 2026. Our proposal focuses on the Grail.
• The section publishes lecture videos on Vimeo and operates a YouTube channel, which currently has more than1,600 subscribers.
• The section actively collaborates with other sections of the school as well as with the Anthroposophical Societies of Canada and the USA.

Topics for 2026

A specific research topic for our section meetings in 2026 is Raphael-Novalis. This topic was chosen to complement the Raphael exhibition in spring 2026 at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City: "Raphael: Sublime Poetry." This winter and spring, our Saturday events will focus on the art history lectures given by Rudolf Steiner in 1916–1917 (GA 292). In addition to artists, we will also look at Renaissance writers such as Petrarch, Castiglioni, Bruni, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, and Vasari. Focus: Petrarch.

We will continue our study of Novalis, with a focus this year on the Hymns to the Night. A highlight will be the Pentecost conference in Dornach.

Later in the year, we plan to devote Section work to topics in 19th-century American literature to support the themes of 2026 AGM meeting of the American Anthroposophical Society: Emerson, Cooper, Dickinson, Hawthorne, and Melville. Focus: Hawthorne, Melville, Dickinson, and Percy MacKaye and the MacKaye family.

Leading members of the section

Bruce Donehower (USA), Fred Dennehy (USA), Gayle Davis (USA), Arie van Amerigen (CANADA), Robert McKay (CANADA), Herbert Hagens (USA), Susan Koppersmith (CANADA), Clifford Venho (USA), Robert McDermott (USA), Philip Thatcher (CANADA), Rachael Staudt (USA), Jeffrey Hipolito (USA), Marion Donehower (USA), Joan Caldarera (USA).